


The Consumed

by zoicite



Category: Gideon the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir, Harrow the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Character Study, Gen, HtN prologue spoilers, Scheming, Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-17 17:01:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21057872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoicite/pseuds/zoicite
Summary: Harrow remembered every filthy page that had ever made her flush, remembered every frustration she’d ever crafted to keep Griddle down, remembered every necromantic spell and theorem she ever learned, but try as she might, she couldn’t remember the last moments of Gideon Nav’s life with enough surety to know exactly where she’d gone wrong.





	The Consumed

Harrow held the rapier and waited. Across from her, Ianthe the First, that sickening amalgamation of Ianthe Tridentarius and Niberius Tern, waited as well. 

Ianthe was being infuriatingly patient -- quiet and still, though her lips were turned up at the ends -- and Harrow’s fingers itched to drop the rapier and go at Ianthe with an army of bone instead of a sword, to strike the start of a smile from Ianthe’s face, to finish what Cytherea started and replace the rest of Ianthe’s limbs with gleaming bone to match her right arm.

This was absurd. 

She’d watched Gideon do this so many times in training in the House of the Ninth and then at Canaan House. She’d watched and never paid a lick of attention to any of the technical elements, but so what? That shouldn’t matter at all now. Harrow held the rapier -- _her_ rapier -- and assumed the stance, or an approximation of what she assumed was the stance. One foot forward, body turned just so, weight toward -- weight on her back foot? 

One flesh, one end, and all that Gideon had ever learned Harrow had learned too. 

So then why could she see the horror on poor Aiglamene’s face from here?

The Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus was a _perfect_ necromancer and she remembered everything she ever learned. She remembered tomes she’d read at seven -- younger -- at four. She remembered her mother’s voice on the last day of her life, the feel of her arms around Harrow, holding her while her father tied the noose. Harrow remembered it all, but she couldn’t remember the feel of a rapier in her hand. She couldn’t remember training with Aiglamene or besting Magnus the Fifth. She couldn’t remember kicking Naberius the Third to the floor. She remembered fighting the construct in Response and Imaging, the exhilaration of realizing how _good_ Gideon was with a sword, but that was not the same. That was not the same as remembering it as Gideon did.

Right, so -- okay. Think this through. She couldn’t remember training with Aiglamene or besting the Fifth or kicking Naberius. She _could_ remember the contents of all of Gideon’s dirty magazines and publications, and for a moment that, at least, was truly a comfort. That could be the start if she could just unlock the rest. 

But no, _no_. That wasn’t a fucking comfort at all! Harrow remembered the magazines because she was the one who’d repeatedly snuck into Gideon’s locked room over the years and leafed through them by the light of a pocket torch, staring at the pictures and dreaming of a reality where she wasn’t alone except for the infuriatingly stubborn Gideon and the dripping snot-mass that was Ortus Nigenad and a 10,000 year old swordswoman -- _girl_ \-- frozen in her prime and locked away forever. 

Harrow remembered every filthy page that had ever made her flush, remembered every frustration she’d ever crafted to keep Griddle down, remembered every necromantic spell and theorem she ever learned, but try as she might, she couldn’t remember the last moments of Gideon Nav’s life with enough surety to know exactly where she’d gone wrong.

Ianthe opened her mouth to speak, and Harrow growled just in time to shut her up for a moment longer.

She held her rapier and she glared at Ianthe and knew it was fucking useless. _She_ was useless with a sword, and that wasn’t -- 

Gideon didn’t have much in the way of intellect, Harrow had always been the first to point that out, but Gideon was right about one thing; she knew the sword. True that she didn’t know the rapier as well as her longsword, but she certainly knew it far better than Harrow does now! She knew it well enough that Harrow had been struck nearly speechless with awe the first time she’d truly _felt_ Gideon in battle.

Oh, Griddle. How dare you do this to me. How fucking dare you.

She watched Ianthe fight and she saw Naberius there within her. It had taken Harrow weeks to look at herself in the mirror -- she still painted her face, but she did it from memory, without any idea how close her approximation came to her usual mask -- but when she finally did look, it only confirmed what she already knew. She was the same Harrow as before, inexplicably stronger and with a sword strapped to her hip, but she watched Ianthe and she watched the Emperor’s Lyctors sent to train the newly ascended, and she knew that inexplicably strong and with a sword strapped to her hip was not all that she should be. In the others she saw necromancers merged with experienced cavaliers. In herself she saw… absolutely nothing. 

She was Harrowhark Nonagesimus, the last of her House, the shining star of the Ninth, and now even that was not enough. 

“Come on, Harry,” Ianthe said. “I’ve fought you before. I know how this goes.”

“Call me Harry one more time,” Harrow warned through clenched teeth, ignoring the rest of Ianthe’s words.

Ianthe had not fought her before. They’d sparred here, yes, if you could call it that, but sparring here was not what Ianthe meant. Ianthe meant that Naberius the Third had fought Gideon the Ninth in their early days at Canaan House. And, ha! That was supposed to be the same thing now.

“Oh?” Ianthe laughed, and her face lit up like she was Coronabeth, bright for a moment, beautiful. “And what? You’ll try to manipulate my own arm into poking me in the eyes again? You’ll best me in a duel? It would be about time!” 

Ianthe knocked the sword from Harrow’s hand immediately, each time Harrow picked it up. She seemed to think that Harrow was doing it on purpose, trying to hide exactly what she was capable of. That _would_ be smart, and Harrow’d played similar games before. 

“Harrowhark Nonagesimus,” Ianthe mused. “Harrowhark Nonagesimus.” She looked to the floor in the thought for a moment, and then she looked up and attempted to snap her skeletal fingers, managed only the sound of bone knocking against bone. “Alright, Gesi then. How’s that? Come on, Gesi. Let’s fight.”

Harrow stopped chewing at her lip and threw out a hand. Four skeletons rose from one of the bone chips she’d littered throughout the Emperor’s ship. They lunged at Ianthe. Ianthe knocked them away so fast she didn’t appear to move at all, but it gave Harrow enough time to surge forward and kick Ianthe in the knee. Ianthe staggered, even buckled slightly, but she didn’t fall. She also didn’t retaliate. She stayed her solid self, didn’t transform into a hideous blood boil only to explode and rain down over Harrow again. 

Yeah, that had happened. Harrow washed her second favorite cloak four times, and it still felt sticky to her fingers. And somehow, standing there holding this sword in her hand felt even worse than that.

Harrow threw the rapier to the floor and it hit with an echoing chime. 

Fuck. This was a fucking cruel joke. It wasn’t fair. This was -- 

_Exactly_ what Harrow deserved.

“I don’t understand why you won’t _use_ your skill,” Ianthe continued. She carried herself differently now. She carried herself as though she’d consumed Corona in addition to Naberius. Maybe she had -- they never found Ianthe’s sister. Maybe that was Ianthe’s secret. She’d consumed Corona Tridentarius and Camilla the Sixth and -- Ianthe held her head high, her smile sharp, even her hair was fuller now thanks to Naberius’ love for pomade. Harrow had initially thought Corona the larger of the twins, the more dangerous. Hilarious now. What else had Harrow been wrong about?

She hated this. She hated everything about it. She should have ended this when she was ten years old. She should have -- She should have listened to her poor pathetic petrified parents. 

She left her rapier where it lay on the floor and walked away, leaving Ianthe to call out after her, ridiculous nicknames, pet names, and oh, that was fucking unbearable. Ianthe rubbing salt into the thousand cuts that Gideon had left behind.

She stormed out of the training room, returned to her room of bone. She took up her beads and began to pray, the rapid clicking familiar and soothing.

“I pray that the tomb is shut forever,” she began, the recitation her only comfort. “I pray the rock is never rolled away.”

Something was very wrong.

**

This wasn’t simply duress. It wasn’t a trauma that she needed to get over, a muscle that she needed to strengthen, or a new cloak that she needed to grow into. 

Those were the theories that circulated on the Emperor’s ship. And if these were the Emperor’s most powerful Lyctors, brought to teach new Lyctors all there was to know, shouldn’t _they_ be able to take one look at Harrowhark the First and see that there was nothing -- no one -- there to grow into? Couldn’t they see that Harrow had taken what she’d learned at Canaan House and she was a stronger, better, necromancer as a result? Gideon had charged her up and then left her and Harrow _was_ stronger, but she knew in her gut, was absolutely bone shakingly sure, that she was no more a Lyctor than she’d ever been. 

Harrow’s stomach roiled. She had to remember everything, every detail. Gideon’s face as she fell, the wet red of Gideon’s blood on the rail, Harrow’s own screams. The Sixth frozen there, lips parted, doing nothing to stop any of it though Harrow was sure now that Camilla Hect knew what Gideon was planning well before Harrow. Camilla the Sixth maybe even knew before Gideon herself.

_First flower of my house. Our triumph._

It was amazing the things certain death could make someone admit.

And all of it true. Embarrassing, mortifying, nauseating, but so heartbreakingly true.

And Gideon -- Harrow felt she could almost _see_ Gideon’s heart swell with each word of praise, each ounce of kindness that Harrow bestowed. It was pitiful and precious, and Harrow hoped that she’d been better at hiding the swell in her own chest at the same. Oh, what did it matter now? 

Harrow’d killed hundreds before she’d even been born. Harrow opened the Tomb and then stood among the swinging bodies of her dead parents. Harrow said the words and those words pushed Gideon right to her death. 

**

Harrow’s parents had _theories_. Dark, twisted and dangerous theories about infiltration and a threat to the Locked Tomb, to the King Undying. They warned Harrow about Gideon before Harrow was old enough to remember Gideon’s name. Stay away, they said -- ordered -- but Gideon was Harrow’s only peer. It was an impossible demand for a child surrounded only by skeletons (alive and dead), Ortus Ninegad, and that one bright spot of radiant color. Orange. Oh, ridiculous. 

It was terrible the things they did to each other. And she _relished_ in it. She fucking loved it. 

Harrow’s mother was convinced, once Gideon survived the gas, that Gideon would open the Locked Tomb, would release the beast that He defeated once but can’t defeat twice. Pelleamena Novenarius prayed on her knees night and day, beads clicking tirelessly, nuns stationed at all of the doors. 

And Gideon wasn’t even a necromancer! That was clear early on. Harrow raised bones and Gideon knocked them down -- but that was just another sign to Harrow’s mother. Gideon was there to destroy. 

Harrow’s father had his cavalier follow Gideon around Drearburh off and on for years, tracking her movements and reporting back (that right there was enough to turn someone away from ever wanting to become a cavalier) until finally Harrow’s parents concluded that Gideon was a strange and scary child, but a bit thick as well, and cared more about her sword, about getting off the Ninth, and about Harrow, than she did the Locked Tomb. They relaxed slightly, but not completely, because if ten minutes of nerve gas could not kill an infant, how could they ever begin to guess what Gideon might survive as an adult? 

To their credit, they didn’t try to kill her again. They left that for Harrow.

_I cannot conceive of a universe without you in it._

Well, here she was, and it was complete shit. 

**

Of all the horrible people for Harrow to be stuck with out here on this death ship. There was only one person Harrow would actually choose to be stuck with at this point -- and she still couldn’t believe that she was admitting that -- but if she couldn’t have Gideon back, then the world, universe, Emperor, _whoever_ couldn’t at least have stuck her here with Palamedes Sextus instead of Ianthe Tridentarius?

Ianthe was _always_ there. She was skilled at piecing together puzzles, that was abundantly clear at this point, and Ianthe looked at Harrow as though trying to rearrange her, trying to make it all fit in her mind. The last thing Harrow needed was for Ianthe to work out some unexpected solution as she’d done at Canaan House. The next thing Harrow knew she’d have a sword in the back and her eyeballs resting in Ianthe’s face.

If Cytherea and Ianthe Tridentarius were the stuff of Lyctors, then they should all just up and quit now, forfeit the war, thaw the Locked Tomb, release Harrow’s girl and have done with it. If Cytherea and Ianthe were the stuff of Lyctors, then Harrow was on the wrong side and always had been.

Something else to chew on during the long cold nights.

“Why won’t you just leave me alone?” Harrow asked. Harrow was in the library -- even the Emperor’s ship had a library -- scanning necromantic titles when Ianthe found her. Ianthe always found her, no matter how tightly Harrow tried to control Ianthe’s access, wrapping herself in bone and blood and layers of wards.

“Who else am I supposed to talk to?”

“I don’t see why you need to talk to anyone,” Harrow snapped, before she realized her mistake. Harrow rarely felt the need to speak to anyone, because there was rarely anyone to speak to in all her years on the Ninth. “Can’t you talk to your cavalier?”

Ianthe rolled her eyes, leaned against the wall and folded her mismatched arms across her chest. “He refuses to speak with me. Still mad about the whole thing.”

Harrow was quiet for a long time, her fingers still pressing over book spines, thinking about this. Ianthe always had someone there. The Third was a living, thriving planet, and Ianthe wasn’t used to being alone, even by those standards. Harrow couldn’t even imagine existing day in and day out with the brighter reflection of herself walking beside her. 

“What do you think happened to your sister?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t know,” Ianthe said, with a dismissive wave of her bone hand. “They said she couldn’t be found.”

“We left her in the Lyctor lab alone. She was alive the last time I saw her,” Harrow pressed. She reached into the folds of her robe for her book, pulled three folded sheets of flimsy from the back. They were stained with her blood, but still legible. Necromancers were necessarily skilled in reading notes through blood.

Harrow unfolded the flimsy, smoothed it out against the wall beside Ianthe and pressed her finger to the spot on the map that represented the lab. She traced her finger to the terrace where she last saw Gideon’s body and the Sixth cavalier.

Ianthe shrugged, but she was interested. Harrow felt Ianthe watch her trace patterns over the map, and Harrow knew that she’d sparked something, could see that this wasn’t the first time Ianthe had puzzled over these questions. 

The Emperor can’t return to the First, but his Lyctors can, and they were the ones to come down and collect Harrow and Ianthe.

“Were you conscious when they arrived to retrieve us?” 

Ianthe shook her head, rolled her cavalier’s eyes. “That Seventh Witch drained me and tore off my arm. No, I wasn’t exactly conscious.”

“I wasn’t conscious either,” Harrow admitted. She didn’t elaborate. She didn’t say that she’d passed out draped over the body of her dead cavalier, couldn’t say that to someone who’d stabbed their own cavalier in the back. But that was important, wasn’t it? She’d passed out holding Gideon, her entire body pressed to her cavalier, yet supposedly by the time the First arrived, Gideon was nowhere to be found. Who could have moved her? Camilla the Sixth? But why? Why move Gideon and leave Harrow?

Unless -- No. Harrow couldn’t do it. She couldn’t entertain the idea that Gideon might have survived. Even if she could have survived the fall, Harrow pulled her off those spikes, saw the state of her. How could Gideon have survived that loss of blood? She was as dead as Captain Deuteros, and equally as missing. Gideon getting up and walking away, leaving Harrow behind, was unthinkable. Ridiculous. Almost laughable.

“Do you know how much of Canaan House we had access to?” Harrow asked.

“I’d say roughly thirty percent,” Ianthe returned immediately, clearly having given this consideration before.

“Yes,” Harrow agreed, impressed. “That was my estimate as well.”

“Why?” Ianthe asked, eyes narrowed. “What are you thinking?”

Oh. So Ianthe couldn’t read minds after all.

“Nothing,” Harrow said, carefully. “It’s silly.”

“I’m sure it is,” Ianthe agreed. It was such a Harrow response that it left Harrow bristling. “Tell me.”

“I can’t help but wonder what else was present in that House. What might have been created and locked there. Teacher was afraid of that place before Cytherea set foot in it. What might have a use for both living and dead -- or nearly dead -- bodies. It’s fascinating to contemplate. A real mystery”

“Mm,” Ianthe said, noncommittal. 

“Do you think your sister still lives?”

Ianthe stared at Harrow for a long moment and then said, “I do.”

“Why?” 

“Because I choose to believe it.” Ianthe turned away, done with the conversation, though it was too late. Harrow had what she wanted to know. 

**

There were many nuns of the Ninth House skilled at channeling thalergenic energy, at calling souls back for a short period of time. It was far from a specialty on the Ninth, but all the same, the nuns could ask the dead a question, request last words, properly say goodbye. 

Harrow was not particularly skilled in this form of necromancy. In all honesty it’d never interested her much, a fact that said more about her solitary upbringing than Harrow cared to admit. She’d never been interested in calling souls, but she’d seen it done, she’d felt the souls that returned, felt them hold and then fade, just as Gideon Nav had held her and then faded away.

Harrow surveyed the walls of her room, the skeletons standing silent at the door, and pressed her fingers to her lower lip. If Gideon had merely died, then perhaps _Harrow_ could call her back now. Not permanently, though that wasn’t unheard of. There had always been stories of the stray necromancer who collected souls, carrying on conversations with groups of people that few could see or sense. They were considered weird and vaguely creepy outliers, but they existed. 

Harrow opened her book and flipped to notes she’d made prior to their journey to Canaan House. She’d spent their three months of preparation pouring through the Ninth’s library, memorizing as much as she could and writing down notes for spells and theorems she rarely used but might find a need for in the coming trials.

The fact that she didn’t have Gideon’s body made it more difficult, but Harrow was determined.  
She tried for several hours, tried with fresh blood and old blood, tried until she collapsed on the floor of her room, blood streaming from her nose, her hair pasted to her forehead with sweat.

She managed to call no one except Ianthe.

She must have fallen asleep again, because the next thing she knew, Ianthe was there, standing over her, and Harrow started and scrambled back.

“Get out!” she snapped, feet kicking feebly out toward Ianthe. No matter how many wards and locks Harrow fixed to the door, Ianthe always managed to find her way in. Harrow was starting to think that Ianthe watched and waited until she could pop in on Harrow at her lowest, her most pathetic. And here she was, reaching out a hand to pick dried blood from Harrow’s cheek.

Harrow slapped her hand away. Ianthe grabbed it, turned it to look at the slices Harrow had made in her palm.

“We were supposed to spar this afternoon,” Ianthe said. “I was worried you’d gone and offed yourself. What have you been up to in here?” She said it as though she’d walked in on Harrow redecorating her bedroom in salacious images, Harrow cuddling her skeleton guards, Harrow writing Fourth House prose to the Emperor.

When Harrow didn’t answer, Ianthe continued.

“I have something for you,” Ianthe said. “Perhaps it’ll help with all of this.” She waved her skeletal arm around to encompass Harrow’s room. 

Harrow clenched her fist and Ianthe’s bone hand jerked back and slapped Ianthe across the face. Ianthe reached out and slapped Harrow in return. Harrow spit a glob of blood onto the floor.

“Ungrateful bitch.”

“I’ll be grateful once you’re dead. I’ll be so grateful I’ll dance a jig with your bones. I’ll be so fucking grateful I’ll turn your fat into candles and i’ll stick them in a celebratory cake. I’ll be so dripping grateful that I’ll --” Ianthe pulled a pair of sunglasses from the folds of her skirt. Harrow stopped speaking so abruptly that she choked on the words she’d planned next, coughed and sputtered and then snapped her mouth shut in an attempt to recover.

“That shut you right up, didn’t it.”

Harrow’s heart felt like it might split open and spill out.

“Where did you get those?” she demanded.

Ianthe shrugged. “I took them. I thought they might suit me.” She slid them onto her face and Harrow felt nausea rise and crest in her chest.

“They don’t.”

“No,” Ianthe agreed. “Oh well. Good thing though, because look.” She held out the glasses to Harrow. Harrow refused to take them even when Ianthe began to shake them at her impatiently.

“There’s a spot of dried blood,” Ianthe offered eventually, pulling the glasses back to point to the spot. “Right there, do you see? A hair caught in the hinge. Oh, I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not mine. It’s a frightfully bright shade of orange.”

“Fuck you,” Harrow said through clenched teeth and a jaw so tight it physically hurt to get the word out. 

“It should be enough,” Ianthe said. “Oh, don’t look so put out. I’ve known there was something wrong with you from the start.”

“You know absolutely nothing about me, Tridentarius.”

Ianthe tossed her hair back behind her shoulder. “But I do. You think it’s too late, but it isn’t. I can see that she’s still there.”

Ianthe couldn’t see shit. Ianthe had Niberius’s eyes and barely knew Harrow or Gideon to begin with. Harrow was empty, emptier than she’d ever been before. She’d consumed Gideon’s soul. She’d never had her in the first place. She’d let Gideon slip away and now -- and now --

And now she remembered Ianthe nibbling at Naberius’s hands, at his hair and his ears. Disgusting. She remembered Ianthe’s teeth pressed to Naberius’s palm. Her stomach churned. And then she remembered Step 6. 

**

Once Ianthe was gone, Harrow picked up the sunglasses from where Ianthe had left them in a pile of bone dust on the floor. They were warm from Ianthe’s touch, the lenses covered in fingerprints just as they’d been every day that they appeared on Gideon Nav’s face. It made Harrow fume then -- Gideon had promised to act _accordingly_ and the glasses, antique smudged glasses, flew in the face of that promise before they even landed on the First.

And then the glasses grew on Harrow like mold, like everything pertaining to Gideon eventually did, so that now Harrow held them and felt that she was the one consumed. 

There was so much happening at once. Gideon impaled on the rail and Harrow bursting open, long wailing screams.

_Gideon! Gideon! Gideon!_

Gideon wasn’t the first to take her life because of Harrow’s actions, to die for Harrow, but she was the first that cleaved Harrow’s heart so completely and -- Gideon had never given a damn about the Locked Tomb. She only cared about Harrow, and in that care she’d overestimated her necromancer. She trusted that Harrow would know what to do, and Harrow failed. All Harrow could do was scream.

_Gideon! Gideon! Gideon!_

And then Gideon was beside her, guiding her, telling her to stand, to pick up the sword. But they’d missed a step. They’d missed this. Step 6: consume the flesh to ground yourself.

“Stop looking at me,” Gideon’s echo had said, her cheek pressed close to Harrow’s. Harrow remembered the cheek had felt warm, though that couldn’t have been the truth. “Don’t you dare look at me.” 

Harrow had listened, had focused on Cytherea and on the task at hand. It was all she could do to stop herself from screaming again. Harrow listened, and she didn’t look at Gideon until Cytherea was dead. By then -- she couldn’t think of anything except Gideon impaled on the spike, of her whole universe shattered and dark. She pulled Gideon off, laid her down, convinced that she could undo it all, hands pressed to Gideon’s gut, sure that Gideon could still be saved. Ten minutes of nerve gas couldn’t kill Gideon, Harrow’s siphoning didn’t kill her, even Cytherea spared her. Gideon was like Harrow. She couldn’t die. 

Harrow didn’t remember exactly what happened next. She remembered blood on her hands, blood from her fingers leaving marks on Gideon’s stupid smiling face. She remembered leaning over her and pressing her lips to Gideon’s forehead, and then she -- she remembered Gideon holding her in the pool, cradling Harrow in her arms, draping her body over her cavalier. Oh, Griddle. The last seven years, Harrow had been so alone, so desperate to fulfill some higher purpose. She’d comforted herself within skeletal arms, within the rotting arms of her parents when skeletons weren’t enough, and all that time Gideon was right there and all Harrow had to do was ask.

There was so much blood, flowing, dripping, co-mingled. With that much blood, with Harrow pressing her lips to Gideon’s still face -- she must have completed Step 6. She’d heard Ianthe. A drop will do. 

And what next? What next?

Next she awoke here. Next she begged for the life of Gideon Nav and He told her it was impossible, that Gideon was a part of her now, but Harrow couldn’t feel a damn thing. She couldn’t feel anything. She had Gideon’s rapier, and she held it and she hated it, and she couldn’t know if she hated it because it wasn’t Gideon’s longsword -- if she hated it because Gideon had hated it -- or if she hated it because she wasn’t a Lyctor, she was alone, and she didn’t know the first thing to do with a fucking sword. She had no idea where to start.

_Gideon! Gideon! Gideon!_

She found the dried spot of blood on the sunglasses, just as Ianthe had said. And there -- there was the hair caught in the hinge. Harrow brought the sunglasses to her face, pressed them to her mouth. She kissed a smudged lens and then pressed her tongue to the dried blood, her eyes squeezed shut. 

Gideon would have so much to say about this, about the tender way that Harrow pressed her mouth to all that was left of Gideon, about the desperate press of Harrow’s tongue to blood and glass. Harrow let the blood re-saturate against her tongue until she gagged at the metallic taste. 

She couldn’t bring herself to eat the hair after that. It shouldn’t matter. As soon as Harrow went through with it, she knew how pointless it was. She knew that Gideon wasn’t going to return for a crust of old blood, not even for all of the fresh blood in Harrow’s body. 

Somewhere, probably right outside the door, Ianthe was surely laughing. 

**

She watched Ianthe melt and reform, she watched her fight and triumph and learn and grow stronger. Harrow grew too, just differently. She grew more resolute in her next course of action, more convinced of what she needed to do. And when Ianthe stood before her, rapier in hand, and said, “I expected more from the Ninth,” Harrow didn’t rise to the bait.

Instead Harrow asked, “Do you know how to pilot a shuttle.”

Ianthe stilled, stared at her for a long moment with her mottled eyes, and eventually said, “Of course. You don’t?”

Harrow shook her head. 

“Nevermind,” Ianthe sniffed. “Silly question. The Ninth House doesn’t make social calls.” The comment seemed intended to hurt Harrow, though Harrow wasn’t sure why she should be hurt by a decision she’d made herself for the good of her House.

“No,” Harrow agreed. “We don’t.”

Ianthe examined her. “What are you thinking?”

Harrow was silent as she turned on her heel and walked away. Let Ianthe work it out for herself.

**

If Ianthe wasn’t genuinely stalking Harrow before, she certainly was now. She positioned herself close to Harrow at all times, followed Harrow around the ship at a distance. An excellent stalker, but Harrow wasn’t stupid and she wasn’t oblivious. She waited.

Harrow, for her part, went about her business. She spent time in the library and pretended not to notice that Ianthe followed, checking the books that Harrow read after Harrow had left. Harrow spent time exploring parts of the ship she’d never bothered with before, gathered up her bone fragments, and didn’t bother to pick up her rapier again even once.

Eventually, Ianthe couldn’t wait any longer. She cornered Harrow in a hallway, pushed her up against the wall, and said, close and quiet, “I’m coming with you.”

“To my room?” Harrow asked, pushing Ianthe’s hands from her shoulders. “I’m flattered, but --” she looked Ianthe up and down. “No, thank you.”

Ianthe scoffed and then shook her head, tossed her hair back, and laughed. It looked like she’d attempted a Corona reaction. It wasn’t convincing.

One of the shuttles was missing. The Emperor was no longer on the ship. Harrow knew, because she’d gone looking, because she needed to be sure that this was the only way. The ship contained one old Lyctor (Augustine -- dangerous, but seemingly less so than Cytherea or Ianthe), Ianthe Tridentarius, and Harrowhark Nonagesimus, and the usual skeleton crew.

“You’re going back to the First,” Ianthe accused openly now. There was no longer any reason to be afraid they might be heard. “You’ll go now, while they’re away. I’m coming.”

“How could I possibly be going anywhere?” Harrow countered. “I don’t have the means. You know that.”

Ianthe grabbed Harrow’s hand, pulled her into the nearest room and shut the door. She pushed Harrow up against it and leaned in close, so close that for a moment, Harrow wondered if she had misread Ianthe, if Ianthe was really planning to try to kiss her. Harrow struggled, pushed at Ianthe, but Ianthe didn’t budge, just pushed her back, her meat arm pressed tight against Harrow’s chest.

“You’re going back to the First with me,” Ianthe announced. “I’ll drive. If that wasn’t your plan before, too bad. It is now.”

Harrow sputtered then, stilled.

“_Why_?”

“I’m not explaining myself to you,” Ianthe said, eyes and voice hard as corundum. “I’m telling you we’re going, I will take you. I will even help you find the body of your cavalier.”

“What do I want with my cavalier’s corpse?” Harrow countered, sharp and a little shrill. She sounded almost convincing..

“How the fuck should I know what filthy things the Ninth gets up to out there, floating all alone in space,” Ianthe spat, and Harrow fought hard then, scratched and kicked, pushed until she was no longer backed against the door. She turned to face Ianthe, pulled bone from her pocket and threw it to the floor.

Ianthe watched the skeletons rise up to flank Harrow. She rolled her eyes.

“I’m going,” Ianthe said. “You’re coming whether you like it or not. If you don’t like it, fine, consider yourself my collateral.”

“Collateral,” Harrow repeated, surprised. “Who do you think is going to accept me as collateral?”

“Oh, Gesi. You’d be surprised,” Ianthe said, simply. “Get ready. We’re leaving.”

She left the door standing open behind her.

**

Gideon made eighty-six attempts to escape from the Ninth and was thwarted every time, more often than not by Harrow herself. 

Harrow planned her one escape from the Mithraeum, and Ianthe made sure it was done in one. 

As they entered the atmosphere of the First, Harrow pulled Gideon’s sunglasses from the pocket of her cloak. Ianthe was focused on the window, her fingers hovering over the controls. She wasn’t paying attention as Harrow unfolded the frames, set them on her face. She pulled the hair from the hinge and placed it on her tongue.

When she caught the first glimpse of Canaan House, still standing tall and alone in the waves. Harrow closed her eyes and waited for the Emperor’s retaliation. She waited to be struck from the sky.

It didn’t happen. She prayed.

“I pray that the tomb is shut forever. I pray the rock is never rolled away. I pray that which was buried remains buried, insensate, in perpetual rest with closed eye and stilled brain. I pray it lives, I pray it sleeps…”

I pray it lives.

I pray she lives.


End file.
